All Tyler Thigpen could do as the Chiefs entered the player acquisition phase of the offseason was hope his play last season was enough to persuade Scott Pioli and Todd Haley that he deserved at least a chance to be the starting quarterback next season.

That hope was shot down Saturday when the Chiefs traded with New England for Matt Cassel, who is the new starting quarterback.

Thigpen instead becomes one of four backup candidates, joining Brodie Croyle, Quinn Gray and Ingle Martin. Veteran Damon Huard was released last week.

Thigpen is the most accomplished player of the bunch, but that may or may not count for much. Thigpen put a spark into a lifeless Chiefs offense after becoming their starter midway through last season.

He wound up throwing for 2,608 yards and 18 touchdowns, but the Chiefs still won only one of the 11 games he started.

Thigpen wasn’t available for comment Saturday.

“I don’t know if this is news that’s all that bad,” said Thigpen’s agent, Joel Turner. “It doesn’t change a whole lot. Tyler’s still under contract. We knew all along they were going to bring somebody in to compete with him.

“You can’t be foolish. Obviously, they’re going to give (Cassel) the starting job no matter what. That just puts Tyler in a position he wasn’t too far removed from a year ago at this time, so it’s not that big of a deal.”

Croyle was solid as the starting quarterback at this time last year. The Chiefs also still had Huard.

The biggest difference is that Thigpen had a supporter in then-coach Herm Edwards. Cassel, who played with Pioli the last four seasons with the Patriots, will be the favorite of the new administration.

“Tyler’s not going to be like some players who are put in this position,” Turner said. “He’s not going to ask to be traded or released or anything like that. He’s going to work as hard as he always has.”

In the long run, this could help Thigpen out quite a bit. He will get the chance to finally learn from good coaches (apparent that the Viking coaches werent so good-- looking at their QB choices) and Herm was obviously a ****ing retard along with Dick Curl.

Who knows, maybe in 2-3 years he will be prepared enough that we either trade him to another team for a lower pick and he finds his way into starting, or he comes in and starts for us via a Matt Cassell type situation. Then he can be traded for a lot higher value. He has skills, he just needs time to learn to play in the NFL.